


Actions Speak Louder Than Words

by Niyuu_Trickster_Kat



Category: Dreaming of Sunshine, Naruto
Genre: Gai is such a sweetheart, Supportive Hatake Kakashi, Supportive Maito Gai, and Kakashi, could also be interpreted as a different relationship if you want?, here have angst with a happy ending instead, i was going for fluff but i failed, learning to be a good friend, looked into why gai might act that way, made myself sad, prepare to have feelings about Gai, support all around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-01 09:00:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18797167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Niyuu_Trickster_Kat/pseuds/Niyuu_Trickster_Kat
Summary: Gai waxes poetic about his Eternal Rival, a person to treasure.





	Actions Speak Louder Than Words

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CookieBlaze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieBlaze/gifts).



Gai’s Pov

 

On a magnificent day in your beautiful Konoha, you stroll cheerfully down the street without your precious genin for the first time in a while. _However, you suppose they are not little genin any longer, are they? Though regardless of what rank they achieve, they will always be yours. Even when they are heroes of the village, teachers in their own right, or even old and gray the gods be merciful and willing, you will always remember the little fledgling gems you began teaching, the precious future of the village you were entrusted with. The memory makes you positively glow with pride._  

 

Neji is spending the day with his family, or more specifically with the darling Hinata, though you’re sure his Hip and Cool attitude would prevent him from honestly expressing a desire to socialize or bond. While he has improved by leaps and bounds - _and you are infinitely proud of him, and thankful to the rookies of the year below your students who have despite everything opened their hearts and let them in to their group, so much more tight-knit and interweaved that it would appear_ \- brave, persevering Neji still has so much trouble with his feelings, and will likely hide beneath the banner of clan obligation to excuse his ‘transgression’ of being kind to his beloved cousin once again.

 

Lionhearted TenTen and dear Lee are once again on the training grounds, running speed and accuracy drills, something that had recently been put off while so much of TenTen’s free time was dedicated to the illustrious Kunoichi group newly headed by the unique and youthful Anko. TenTen was truly blossoming into a glorious kunoichi under her care, and Lee, of course, continues to blow you away with his diligence and tireless work ethic.  
  
Truly, your students are becoming absolutely splendid shinobi right before your eyes.

 

However, even as you steadily make your way to your destination, some of the shinobi you encounter can act… less splendid than you’re sure they can be. Oh, you’re sure they can be wonderful, sure that every single one has the embers of the will of fire glowing warmly in their chests, their flames of youth ready to be fanned into a splendid and righteous inferno! But... unfortunately your precious student Neji is not the only person in your beautiful Konoha who has trouble expressing themselves, who hides the warm embers of their hearts deep within for fear they will be smothered and put out. They hide their warmth deep within them and in turn, they can be… cold.

 

Unfortunately, you know very well what it is like to be treated coldly.

 

Although you hope you have given them little reason to, civilians and even other shinobi alike have a habit of avoiding you. They often deem you loud and annoying, some of the less than kind think you are strange or touched in the head. Other Jounin sensei seem largely unbothered, though they do ignore or shrug you off. It is perfectly valid, of course, to like who you like! Nobody is entitled or obligated to the dedication of their free time in their busy days to indulge an odd stranger or even coworker for that matter. It is always a worthy kindness to reach out your hand to others, to help when asked, but a great unkindness to demand others to do so for you - Or at least to feel entitled to it. You see the best in others, happily reach out your hand again and again, and sometimes they reach back and you find an absolute treasure of a person! But sometimes it is, in a phrase very reminiscent of the dear brilliant little Nara boy Shikamaru’s favorite words, a tad… tiresome, when people simply don’t listen or take you seriously. But in fact, the person you are visiting the Jounin lounge to see is very different from that.

 

Kakashi, your Eternal Rival listens, and always takes you seriously.

 

Your dear Rival is one of those treasured people who took your hand after you reached out to them, and though each one has their own place in your heart you would be hard pressed to find one quite like Kakashi. To be sure it might have... taken a few times. Kakashi was once one of those very people who hid their hearts deep as if fearing it would be stolen from them, but you are not one to compromise your morals, and you have never believed in refusing to help just because you have been refused before. You rarely know the entirety of the depth of a person, and almost never so a stranger, and everyone has their own struggles. Even the most delicate of civilians raise in the morning to face battles that you will never see, face victories and losses never to be acknowledged and burn brightly where the sun’s glare would mask them or the depth of the shadows would hide them. You never know when a kind word or gesture, a single instant of belief and support, is all somebody needs to push through.

 

Kakashi believes in you and shows that he cares in his Hip offhand manner. He listens, takes you seriously. Your Eternal Rival looked at your hard work and saw _that_  past your looks and eccentricities. He has acknowledged you every step of the way, and with his every nonchalant action told you that you could, you would, that it went without saying that you had the will and ability to succeed.

 

You appreciate that more than he’ll ever know.

 

Actions speak louder than words, and your Rival’s actions proclaim his care to the sky even as he can’t bring himself to acknowledge it with even a single word. Kakashi has gone through much, learned to be self-sufficient in a desperate and necessary way. You admire his strength, but more than that you are blown away that the entirely closed off, aloof and hurting boy from the academy has oh so slowly loosened his armor and allowed gates in his walls so that though they are few and far between he now allows in those he treasures as well.

 

Gai may have been the first to so doggedly try, but it was actual dogs, Kakashi’s beloved Ninken who he allowed into his heart first. Then Minato-sensei. Gai was next after that, perhaps chosen in spite of the two genin that should have perhaps been sooner rather than following too late after. Your Rival, your friend… never completely bounced back from that. He backslid and _hard,_ and you feared that maybe this would be what smothered those embers, what caused your friend to hide his heart so deep even he himself could not find it.

 

It was a bad few years.

 

Then something changed. It would be arrogant to claim Kakashi was taking pointers from you, but none the less you noticed him do something that filled you with pride and humbled you at the same time. You have always believed that the best way to work through something, to help yourself, was to help others. Seeing Kakashi deliberately opening himself up and realizing he had taken another broken soul beneath his wing was enough to bring manly tears to your eyes! Oh, you probably shouldn’t know - not about your friend’s old charge turned shaky friend, certainly not about ANBU. But you are an elite shinobi, Konoha’s Sublime Green Beast, and you are neither ignorant nor unable to put two and two together.

 

You knew enough to see when your friend withdrew further, and then when he began to open back up. You saw as he returned to traveling the barely worn grooves of friendship and saw how he painstakingly carved them deeper. How he turned to you to teach him how to be a better friend and you watched him realize he had taken up a mantle that you already carried, that you were for him what he now was for this poor broken soul and you couldn’t be prouder.

 

Kakashi has always had his own way of doing things, and in this, he was no different. His way of caring, of supporting, is something that is at the same time obvious and subtle, can be missed completely if you don't know him well. He is every inch the splendid shinobi, for all he stands sword in hand by his precious people’s sides like the most dedicated of samurai. He watches carefully, tries to make himself stronger, and does little things. Unnoticeable to most unless they remember how standoffish he is to strangers, he carries extra ration bars despite how he himself needs to be reminded to eat, weathers every challenge given by others or (more often) himself, and is willing to drop everything (obviously or not) to hear his precious people out on the off chance that they need it more than he knows.

 

You are so very proud of Kakashi.

 

Others might think that out of your dear friend’s truly stunning genin team that precocious, determined Shikako was the only one when faced with adversity to start squirreling away every little thing she can think of for a rainy day - _you’re half convinced she would have a kitchen sink in there,_ _the only reason she wouldn’t being the fact she found something else that was better, she's wiley and spirited that way, though she might find it in her mischievous heart to have one just to say she did._ But no, your eternal rival, her dear beloved teacher, Started carrying extra water, food, and medical supplies ever since that mission to Wave that lead to his kids being out of the village and unable to get what they needed. Kakashi was a bit frantic afterward - and he was quiet. Far too quiet.

 

You much prefer to be loud, when you can afford to be. You can’t say that you’ve ever liked the quiet - as if your listening for an out of place breath, the sound of a step just after yours, a mistimed rustle of the leaves or snap of a twig. Quiet always feels like danger, that you’re unsafe and just waiting with bated breath for the other shoe to drop. Being loud, having noise, has always felt like safety, like being home. Feels less like you have to worry, don’t have to listen for enemies or fear giving away your position, endangering your fellows when you can’t afford to be found.

 

You’re strong, much stronger than most, and physically stronger than nearly everyone you know or have ever met, but even now sometimes when the quiet stretches a bit too long you feel the phantom chill, a vague unease, the subtle nudge to draw inward, make yourself smaller, quieter, _if you hide, if your quiet, maybe they won't find you._

 

But then you stop, you draw yourself upward and outward instead, and allow yourself to be larger than life, your voice to echo because you refuse to allow your own fears to render yourself less than you truly are.

 

Kakashi has his own little eccentricities. He forces his muscles to be loose and calm, relaxed, so they won't be stiff and taught. When you were children, after the loss of his father but before the loss of so many others, he held himself ramrod straight and when things truly began to mount more pressure on his tiny shoulders than he could take he would tap his fingers, fidget, stay in constant motion - when he would slip and allow himself to show how nervous, uneasy and high strung he could be in the first place, anyway. He’s started doing it again recently, and you’re not sure if it’s a good thing that he’s showing his emotions more or if this shows just how bad the stress he puts himself under is getting. Either way, it’s rare, though for those few awful years it was nonexistent; Hard to drive yourself into a nervous wreck when you refuse to care about anyone, even yourself.

 

Gai’s not sure if he should be thankful or resentful of Kakashi's first few years in ANBU, because, on the one hand, he hurt himself on ANBU like a fresh trainee with their first live steel. But, on the other hand, it allowed Kakashi to admit to himself that he was capable of being hurt, capable of hurting even when the injuries were gone. It was a lesson you are heartbroken he had to learn, but oh so thankful that he did.

 

You finally reach your destination and walk into Jounin lounge only to see that Kakashi is there - _and has noticed your entry immediately, I would expect nothing less from my Eternal Rival -_ along with another, younger Jounin who is talking to him scathingly, trying to be loud and challenge him.

 

For a tiny, insecure moment, you are frozen. Kakashi seems to notice - _Of course he does -_ and his eye flashes, sharpens, and Gai can move again.

 

You take a steadying, deep breath and push yourself forward.

 

“MY ETERNAL RIVAL!” you yell, quickly diving into a grand and creative speech about the flames of youth, the importance of friendship, with detours into waxing poetic about the magnificent students you’ve been teaching, that somehow managed to wind down into an eating challenge.

 

Kakashi, in his usual Hip and Cool routine, asks “Did you say something?”

 

You are happy for the excuse to cause a bit of a scene, the noise and dramatics chasing away that last bit of unease that had snuck it’s way into your gut. You are both elite Jounin of Konoha and regardless of demeanor, paranoid because of it. Dropping your guard and not paying attention, trusting another to watch your back while it is vulnerable is a show of amazing trust every single time, and while it might appear that Kakashi ignores everyone in the room including the man with the reddening face beside him, a subtle look reveals that his Rival is keenly aware of everyone.

 

Everyone but Gai.

 

While others might take carefully careless words to heart, actions speak louder than words. For Gai and Kakashi especially, the easing of tension in both of their shoulders speak volumes.

 

Kakashi easily strides past you, the other man left purple-faced and stuttering, as you both leave the room with easy chatter and distracted seeming hums.

 


End file.
